


Foxes & Hounds

by XtaticPearl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Buddy Cop AU, Feels, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-11-15 05:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: FBI agent Steve Rogers is sent to New York on the case of a mystery hacker who is tipped off to hold secrets to a dangerous network of corporate crimes. If coming back to New York hadn't been bad enough, he is also partnered with resident detective Tony Stark; a man who had changed his life five years ago. With a wealth of history between them and an undercurrent of tension, these two must work together and solve the case before it becomes too late for everyone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vorkosigan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorkosigan/gifts).



> Hello, everyone!  
> This is a fic won in the STH auction by Vorkosigan. I had the most wonderful time writing this and am really excited to have written a buddy cop AU, something I had never attempted before. I hope you have fun reading this!

Steve pulled out his flip phone as he walked out of the terminal into the bustling mess of the reception area. The reception was always a jumble with his Neolithic piece of tech, but Steve wasn't usually a guy who liked to throw things of the past while they still held value.

Usually was a point to stress, especially at present, as Steve stepped into the familiar air of New York - a piece of the past he had abandoned five years ago.

He skimmed through the messages on his phone, sighing exasperatedly as he read the 13 messages from Bucky and Sam together in various degrees of snarky concern. He was reading the 12th message when the screen changed and a flashing name of Nick Fury came on.

"Rogers," Steve said as he took the call, keeping his voice deliberately light and moving onto the curb to hail a cab, "I'm here, sir. Will be there in an hour."

"Make it half," Fury's voice cut through the tinny line, “You can get settled after you get the brief.”

  
There was a man wearing peacock feathers as earrings across the street, smoking a cigarette with a laugh on his lips. Steve saw the man chattering into his phone with that laugh before bringing the phone away from his ear and ending the call. The laugh ended with the call and the man looked lost in its aftermath, his earrings more in place than he was in the crowds of the city.

  
Steve could visualize the same thought in himself as he processed Fury’s order to report without taking a breather. He had worn a mask of professionalism and taken the assignment when given, coming back to his past with some thread of control over his dread. Maybe it was his age old stubbornness or his need to prove himself to an ever watching and unseeing world, but whatever it was, it had got him through from DC to NY. Now though, that stubbornness was wavering at the prospect of going to the bureau.

  
Going back to the people in the bureau.  
“Rogers?” Fury’s voice snapped him back to the present and Steve fell in line to get a cab from the taxi stand.

  
“Got it, sir,” he replied and watched a yellow car slow down towards his curb, “Meet you in half an hour.”

  
Snapping the phone shut, Steve shuffled ahead, keeping his eyes trained on his phone and avoiding the small talk of the men behind him.

  
“Where to?” the lady at the window asked when he reached the front and Steve stuffed his phone into his jacket pocket.

  
“Manhattan,” he replied and waited as she printed out his receipt. Pocketing it with a nod, he walked left to the taxi stand he was directed to and found his yellow car of doom.

Stuffing his single duffel bag into the trunk of the car, he slipped in and eyed the cab driver for a second to determine if he was the chatty sort or if Steve could get a ride of peace.

  
Two minutes into the ride and Steve wished he had taken a bus.

  
“…So I look at her, this tiny pack of bombass attitude and say So what’re you gonna call yourself now?,” the driver, who was apparently Canadian as he introduced himself, said with one hand gesturing wildly and the other thankfully on the steering wheel, “and this nugget sized dynamo stares up with her black eye and goes _Negasonic Warhead!_ ”

  
Steve held back a sigh as the guy laughed at his own joke. That always meant that people were going to elaborate on a joke and Steve – was really not in the mood for jokes. But he was also not in the mood to pick up a fight with a cabbie he was going to be stuck driving with for another 20 minutes or so.

 _God_ , Steve thought to himself amusedly, _Bucky would choke on his tongue if he heard that I DIDN’T want to pick a fight._

  
“You in trouble with the cops?” Steve heard the driver say in between his on-going ramble and looked up from his phone with a bit back frown.

  
“What?”

  
“Eh,” the cabbie made a vague motion with his hand, “Guy gets outta the airport and wants to go straight to a cop place? Either trouble with them or trouble for them.”

  
“Took a lot of guys to stations from the airport, then?” Steve asked as he deleted another message from Sharon asking about To -

  
“You get all kinds of them in these yellow things, man,” the driver chuckled and muttered something under his breath but continued before Steve could parse it out, “You staying for a while here or catching another one of those flying death machines soon?”

  
“Take the left from the next,” Steve pointed out, mostly to avoid answering the question, “Death machines? That seems excessive.”

  
“Hooo boy,” the driver chuckled like Steve was talking about things he didn’t know, “You don’t say a good hi to death till you fall off 30,000 ft, I tell ya.”

  
Right. Steve tuned out the driver's rant and let his mind wander to the case he had taken up.

  
Six months ago, Roxanne Energy Corporation, one of the country's leading conglomerates, had suffered the most tragic accident when its new oil project plant construction site saw a disastrous fire. Fifteen lives had been lost, ten of Roxxon’s employees and five hired workers, and the head of the company had issued allegations against the natives who lived around the area. The _Anuquit_ tribe had been emphatically against the construction right from the start and Hugh Jones, the head of the company, had stood his ground with the level of arrogance that came with being entitled and privileged with capitalism.

  
The case hadn't gained traction though, until Colonel James Rhodes had found a threat to the tribe during a mission and tipped off the authorities. Steve knew the man well enough to know that Rhodes, a.k.a Rhodey to his friends, was a man of integrity but also a keen eye for the hard truth. In all his years of work, Steve had come to trust individuals more than institutions, so he wouldn't really hesitate to place his bet on Rhodey being a sharp eye on the issue.

  
Which brought him to a graver complication because Steve had heard about Rhodey's crash two weeks ago. The thought of the charming, active, dynamic man suffering long lasting damage brought a sense of unease far more than on a professional level to Steve. After all, they had once been good friends. Even more connected thanks to To –

  
“You wanna get forward or get dropped off here?” the driver's voice cut through Steve's musing and he focused on his surroundings out the window of the cab.

  
“Here's fine,” Steve said, seeing the cars parked ahead of them, “It's just the next building.”

  
“Whatever you say,” the driver stopped the cab and Steve fished out his wallet to pay him. The driver eyed him in the rear-view and raised a brow.

  
“You can pay through your phone now, y’know?”

  
“I know,” Steve replied but handed over the cash to him and got out of the cab to get his bag from the trunk. He was always teased about his avoidance of growing technology by all those who knew him, and most often Steve didn't give it much thought. He had nothing against the digital world, he quite admired its speed and efficiency .

He just wasn't the biggest fan of its complete disregard for privacy, personal space, and precautions. A phone number sounded like the most innocuous thing to offer but those ten digits gave more away about a person than ten dates could.

  
_“You're like a 40s soldier sometimes, you know? All your adherence to cash, preference of actual paper letters, ridiculously paranoid suspicions. It's cute when it's not annoying.”_  
_“That could possibly be the best description of YOU.”_

  
_The brunet shot him a stink eye but then shrugged in agreement and Steve rolled his eyes._

  
“Focus,” Steve muttered under his breath as he hauled his bag a bit higher on his shoulder, avoiding the eyes of the people walking past him as people did in this city he had once loved. The building he entered sat nestled between a loud gym and a hushed pet store, its door as pristine as the reception counter it opened to.

  
“Chief Fury,” Steve informed the man at the counter and got a nod even as he heard a familiar voice calling.

  
“Steve?”

  
Steve turned to the right to see a baffled looking Clint Barton staring at him with a donut halfway to his mouth, his uniform slightly rumpled. The slightly shorter blond gave a disbelieving huff of laughter before walking up to Steve, eyes flashing equal signs of pleasant surprise and slight wariness. Clint had been one of the few people Steve had parted from in good spirit when he left the city, the assault specialist being surprisingly understanding of Steve's decision.

  
“Well, lookie here, who may we have,” Clint grinned as he reached Steve, eyeing him from head to toe, “Captain frickin America, in the flesh.”

  
“If it isn't the Robin Hood Of Kilts himself,” Steve grinned back and caught the donut when Clint threw it at him with a snort, “Bad aim, Hawkeye.”

  
“It did get to your hand, didn't it?” Clint made a face and eyed Steve's bag before looking at him, “You here on vacation, Cap?”

  
“Work, and you can stop calling me that anytime you want,” Steve informed the man with an amused tone as he picked up the guest access card from the reception.

  
“Nah, it's the rule now,” Clint quipped and took a bite of his donut before continuing with an assessing gleam in his eyes, “Fury called you in?”

  
“Yeah, the Roxxon case”

  
“Roxxon, huh?” Clint asked with a knowing look that Steve remembered too well, “So who else knows you're here?”

  
“Clint,” Steve warned lightly but the other man simply leaned against the reception counter and raised an eyebrow.

  
“Does Ton-”

  
“I've got to go, I'm already late,” Steve stepped away from the spot, shooting Clint a two finger salute, “I'll see you around!”

  
“You'll see a lot many people around!” Clint hollered back as Steve bid a hasty retreat.

  
“Who was that guy?” Scott, the new guy on the reception, asked eyeing Steve's retreating form with interest.

  
Clint rolled his eyes and picked up a paper from Scott's desk, wiping his donut greased hand on it. “That is a blast from the past,” he said with a shake of his head, “One that's gonna blow up in a lot of faces here.”

  
“That bad, huh?” Scott frowned and Clint snorted.

  
“Bad?” he asked and crushed the paper in hand into a ball before shooting it right into the nearby trashcan, “Hell, it might be the best thing we could get. Maybe a few more than the others.”

  
Especially one more than all, Clint thought as he winked at Scott and went out to get to his car.  
\--------  
“I never signed up for this”

  
Tony didn't startle from his bench, straddling away from the door, the modified Glock 17 cradled in one hand as the other held the bullets. His lips quirked up to one side as he checked the magazine and let familiar footsteps enter the room.

  
“I said I never signed up for this,” an exasperated but fondly amused Bethany Cabe repeated as she walked up to behind Tony.

  
“I heard that,” Tony hummed under his breath on a pause as he reloaded the magazine, “Doesn't mean I understand it.”

  
“You,” Beth pointed with a neatly maintained index finger as Tony looked over his shoulder, “I never signed up for you.”

  
“You kind of did, Cabe,” Tony shrugged with a bit back grin as Beth raised an eyebrow, “I distinctly remember you signing up for me.”

  
“As a partner,” Beth stressed with an eye roll, glancing at the weapons laid out around Tony, “Not your personal calendar.”

  
“I should try that,” Tony mused, putting away his last weapon to his right and swinging around to straddle the bench facing the redhead, “A Beth calendar. Maybe like an AI. Like an advanced, omnipresent, personal reminder.”

  
“You do that,” Beth quipped dryly but glanced again at the weapons around Tony, “You done now?”

  
“Why’re you hustling me away? What?” Tony grinned like a fox and eyed Beth's attempt at suppressing a grin, “Do you need me to go butter up Fury for you? Are you fluffing me up to be your sacrificial lamb to the Chief Gods, Cabe? What?”

  
“You'd be a terrible lamb. In your wolf clothing,” Beth snorted and crossed her arms across her chest, “You were supposed to be up in a meeting fifteen minutes ago, even by your half an hour extended regular delay.”

  
“I was busy,” Tony gestured to the weapons on the bench behind him but got up nevertheless, “Really, it's the department that's slacking. Not my fault that I'm busy all the time.”

  
“You're busy screwing around with others’ work,” Beth pointed out, a grin peeking out despite her attempt at a poker face, “Your work is always chaos.”

  
“You mean genius, of course,” Tony informed with an innocent look, catching the rag Beth threw at him from the door handle.

  
“Our dictionaries must never meet,” Beth shook her head, moving out the door as Tony followed her, “You ready for today?”

  
“No, can I quit?” Tony slung an arm around Beth's shoulder as they walked past a muttering Coulson towards the elevator.

  
“Sure. You ready to join SI?”

  
“You make a valid point, Ms.Cabe,” Tony conceded and nodded at Hill as she joined them in the elevator.

“Bethany”

  
“Maria” Beth greeted back and sharply stepped on Tony's toe when he faked a gagging sound into a cough.

  
“Read the Daily Bugle piece,” Maria said, right hand in her pocket and left holding two files as she looked at them in the mirrored closed door, “Good choice of quotes. I was surprised Jameson went mellower than usual.”

  
“Yes, well, they had a newbie sent over for the byte,” Beth tucked an errant lock of hair away from her forehead, “The kid wasn't even out of school, as far as I know. He was buzzing higher than Johnny on Redbull.”

  
“Well, Storm on Redbull tends to destroy the copier machine,” Hill rolled her dark eyes, “Chief let out an official memo about it after the latest one he broke yesterday. As long as the kid isn't that hyper, it's okay.”

  
“Ah” Tony observed and shut his mouth when Beth raised an eyebrow at him.

  
“That wasn't a good _Ah_ ,” Hill commented dryly and Tony shrugged as he looked at Beth.

  
“That might have been me, not Johnny,” he replied and shrugged again when Hill shot him a narrow look over her shoulder, “What? Honestly, I was just trying to make the system faster. Not my fault Coulson bitched me out before I could put it back together.”

  
“I'll make sure to cite that as your defence to Fury when I ask him to change the memo subject from Storm to Stark,” Hill shot back and Tony rolled his eyes but shot Beth a look when he caught her holding back a laugh.

  
The elevator stopped at their floor and Tony mock bowed to Maria before getting out, ducking in time to avoid one of Foster’s paper message balls as it flew from her desk to Lewis’.

  
“Hey,” Beth caught up to him, walking beside him in equal strides, “You're sure you're ready for today?”

  
“Does it matter, Beth?” Tony asked as they turned around the water cooler corner, “It's not like Fury’s gonna listen.”

  
“You could always swap with me,” she told him and he laughed.

  
“Worried for your ex partner, Cabe?”

  
“Worried about my current partner,” she snorted, “If Williams screws with one more report of mine, he'll be a dickless dick, quite literally.”

  
“Classy as always, Cabe,” Tony chuckled and stopped her as they reached the dark door with Fury’s name outside it, “Beth, it's fine. I'm not wading into war. I'll be fine.”

  
“You don't wade into wars, you invite them to your way,” Beth replied but sighed and nodded, “Alright, fine. Go get ‘em, and don't kill anyone.”

  
“And what about if I die?”

  
“You've tried before,” Beth told him as she began walking away, “Like Rhodey says, it never sticks!”

  
“Menace” Tony muttered fondly under his breath and closed his eyes for a second. Bracing himself, he raised a closed fist and knocked thrice on the door.

  
“Come in!” Fury’s voice commanded from inside and Tony blew out a breath before opening the door –

  
“Stark, come in. Sit down. Meet Agent Rogers, your new partner on the Roxxon case.”

  
\- and met the eyes of his past.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Fury was droning something about discretion and direct approaches but Tony was determinedly staring at the swinging sticks sculpture on the Chief's desk. He remembered Pepper having one of those on hers; a present from her predecessor, Mrs. Arbogast, when Pepper had become a permanent employee at SI. Obadiah had loved it, calling it a smart mind's tool.

Tony had never seen a sculpture he had hated so much in his life. It was a symbol of kinetic energy, of the relation between an environment and an object. It was constant and predictable in its movement, distracting in its existence. It reminded Tony of change for the sake of others, for the sake of those who changed you. It was the rule of Physics and Tony believed in it but also walked around it. Because Tony was potential; potential energy in his gut and soul. His mind worked through that potential shifting itself into motion, but the distractions in Tony came from himself.

The swinging sticks, or double pendulum, was Tony's antithesis. Or maybe a mirror with a clearer image than he had asked for.

"Any questions?" Fury asked and Tony snapped back to the present, schooling his face to his practiced mix of indifference and insolence.

"Yes," Tony leaned back a little and batted his eyes twice, "did my suggestion for Anti-Hammer sprays pass yet?"

"No questions then, good," Fury didn't roll his eye but his tone was a masterpiece of dryness, "Rogers, Stark will be briefing you about the progress and everything else. Good luck, gentlemen."

The dismissal was clear and Tony felt keenly aware of his mildly itching hands as he got up to make his exit, avoiding a glance to check if Rogers was following. Going by the creaking of the chair and a shuffle of shoes on the floor, Tony presumed that he was.

"Stark, stay back a minute ," Fury called out and Tony froze with a hand on the handle of the door. Rogers cleared his throat, making Tony look over his shoulder to see him glancing between Tony and the door. 

"Um, yeah, okay," Tony moved aside before looking at Rogers, "I'll meet you in Lab 2, one floor down. Tell Banner that I sent you there."

Rogers raised an eyebrow at the order but simply got out the door with a placid face, leaving Tony in the room with Fury.

Tony turned around to shoot Fury a fake smirk. "Yes, my dear Captain Hoo-"

"You two worked together before," Fury cut to the point and Tony froze, "And I've been led to the conclusion that Rogers left for DC because of you. That about right?"

"Wow, did Sherlock Holmes get a costume change?" Tony quipped but got an unimpressed look for his effort.

"Is this going to be a problem?" Fury asked, his single good eye holding Tony in place.

"This is my case," Tony said, "and I'll solve it."

"That wasn't what I asked, Tony."

"That's the only answer that should matter."

"Pipe down," Fury warned lightly but eyed Tony calmly. "I'm not gonna go into the details, I already got them from Coulson -" Fury dared Tony to protest that bit but Tony stared back, "- and I don't care. I don't care about what happened in the past. I want to make sure that you don't either."

"That's...not something I can promise"

Fury stared at him for a minute, face devoid of judgement, the thin stretch of his lips not pursing an inch. He was a mastermind, Nick Fury, with patience larger than the combined staff of the bureau when needed. Tony had seen him stare into the eyes of serial killers with not a trace of emotion in his single good eye, calmly discussing the disembowelment of a victim over a cup of tea. He had also seen Fury with Sitwell's son, not batting his eye at the boy for making a mess out of his office. Fury was a chameleon, Tony had observed during the first month of the man's joining; he morphed himself to his surrounding without changing who he was. The perfect spy material. The master spy.

"Whatever happened between you two," Nick began in a calm voice that belied the weight behind it, "was not under my charge. Phillips was your Chief then, not me. I know what he'd briefed me about before he left, nothing else. You can try to brush it off, pull your usual masks with me, and this time I'm gonna accept it. Because I don't know anything about it; anything that matters more than the field report. But Tony -" Fury leaned forward a bit, holding Tony's gaze as he tapped once on the table, "-, if you can't do this job without bringing in complications that shouldn't come in, I'm gonna ask you to leave it right away. This is a high level case. This is  _your job_ , and you can risk everything but not your job. So I'm gonna ask you one more time, and I'm not gonna ask you this ever again.  **Is this going to be a problem?** "

Tony had once been trapped in a water tank, in the darkness for over five hours. The water hadn't risen above his shoulders and there were no dead insects taking a swim with him but he had felt trapped. When he had come out, had been dragged out by firm hands, everybody had asked him about the water. Pepper had been careful about bringing up cold showers or bathtubs. Happy had tactfully avoided a pool practice. Everybody had been concerned about the water. There had been only two people who had hit the gold with Toy's real issue - Fury and Rhodey. Only they had known that it hadn't been the water that had shaken him; it had been the darkness. The feeling of sensory overload even as his eyes adjusted to the dark and imagined that it was all he could see. Darkness was Tony's biggest trap. The embodiment of not knowing. Fury had known that from experience. Rhodey had known that because he was the one who had pulled Tony out.

 _I don't know_ , Tony wanted to say.

"No, sir," he said and saw Fury nod once. Accepting the lie and making it the truth. The way they always did.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Bruce Banner looked different from what Steve had seen in pictures and on Dr. Ross' phone. Square cut, rimless glasses sat on a slightly crooked nose, a perpetual slight frown tempering the effect of the nerd get-up. The man had tousled chestnut hair, messy like he had been running his fingers through them constantly out of muted frustration. The mild lavender shit was rumpled around the torso and stained with a green tinge near the sleeves. His dark eyes didn't meet Steve's gaze for more than ten seconds during a single conversation and his fingers were constantly flexing or haltingly wringing each other. 

The famed and famously defamed forensics expert was a picture of barely restrained anxiety from where Steve sat in the corner of the spacious but cluttered lab. 

"I hear that your new research on gamma radiation and DNA is set to create waves," Steve attempted, a pleasant smile on his face and noted the shorter man jerk over the flasks he was arranging on his table.

"What - yeah, uh, that," Bruce shot an attempt of a smile before looking back down, "it's just a theory right now. I'll have to make a practical attempt at it to make it worthwhile."

"Well, every innovation begins with a theory," Steve quipped and got a mildly amused look, "You've been here for long now?"

"Not quite long, but yeah," Bruce nodded as he rinsed a beaker under the mini sink, "a couple of years. You're from DC, right?"

"Yeah," Steve leaned on his elbow, "Your Harlem 'Thunderbolt' deduction became quite famous back there. That was some great forensic work."

Bruce tensed for a second and shot a quick scrutinising look at Steve, smart eyes searching for something before he focused on his hands.

"Is that what's famous there?"

"That's what I remember," Steve shrugged, playing casual deliberately. Everybody at the bureau had heard about the drug scandal and the allegations shoved onto Dr. Banner's name. Steve remembered Betty Ross fiercely scorning the news report and getting into heated debates with Talbot defending her ex-husband and former colleague. On Sundays, he remembered joining her, Van Dyne, Sam, and Sharon for drinks of the _Past Sucks_ league. Betty would twirl a green straw between her fingers and stare hard at her _mojito_ during those days; like it tasted bitter and familiar. Steve remembered all of that, but there were a few things not meant for him to remember out loud. 

Everybody had those.

Bruce raised an eyebrow and looked at Steve with curious eyes, his glasses shifting with a scrunch of the guy's nose. Steve kept his eyes focused and felt himself relax a bit when Bruce nodded after a minute, his shoulders releasing some high-strung tension. They fell into a silence of comfort for a while, the only sound breaking the white blankness of the lab coming from Bruce's glass tubes. Steve looked around him, catching glimpses of clipped equations on notice boards, half-erased notes on a white-board's corner, a messy sketch of a monster like figure peeking out from the edge of the whiteboard, crusted coffee mugs on a foldable table; the usual signs of a lived in home if a home was built between chemicals, microscopes, and white coats. There were two mugs though, Steve observed with a strange pang beneath his breastbone, two sets of handwriting on the whiteboard. The monster figure was drawn in sharp strokes, the angles stark but the ink too deep; like someone who hadn't used colours for long had dabbled with them for a rushed work.  _Fingers of an engineer_ , Steve's mind supplied and he hoped that his face wasn't showing any sourness.

"Must be different," Bruce spoke up, prompting Steve to look back at him. The man was observing Steve with a veiled knowing look, his hands wiping water on a rag that was once a pale shade of blue. "Being back here after so long," he continued, smiling a bit when Steve raised an eyebrow, "I  _have_ been long enough to know a few legends, you know?"

"A legend? That's what you know about me?" Steve asked and Bruce shrugged.

"When you work with Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, you learn to spot the difference between their stories and  _legends_ "

"Of course," Steve chuckled lightly, rolling his eyes.

"And then there's Tony, obviously," Bruce quipped and Steve's smile died. Bruce seemed to have caught on to the shift in mood but before he could say anything the door to the lab opened.

"I'm officially banning Fridays from existing," Tony declared as he stormed into the room, not glancing at Steve and walking straight towards Bruce, "I don't care if it upsets your TGIF nights or Barton's poker club, scratch that, I  _do_ care that it might upset Barton's poker club. I'll ban it just for the sake of upsetting that club. They're goddamned cheats -"

"You count cards, Tony," Bruce interjected and Tony pointed at him with a tong he had picked up from the table.

"-who  _are not smart_ at it, and that's just an insult, Bruce, it's an insult to cheating. You wanna cheat, you have to be smart and make sure nobody notices," Tony pointed once more emphatically before walking around the table, tapping the tong on the surface in a nonsensical beat, "But my point, you interrupting cow, is that I'm banning Fridays because Fury, the -"

"No more pirate jokes," Bruce pointed to the board on the wall behind them where a printed list of rules existed.

" _\- eye of Sauron_ ," Tony winked at Bruce as he walked up behind him and leaned over his shoulder to look at the device he was fiddling with, "honestly, Bruce, I'm a creative person and I can find alternatives. But the point is that Nicholas is a hardass who definitely is trying to extract revenge for some unknown past life crime of mine."

"Well, hopefully it was a 'creative' crime," Bruce shot back with a repressed grin and Steve watched Tony poke him in the side with the tongs. Bruce startled and almost dropped a beaker of some chemical, making Steve jerk into alertness.

"Hey, watch it with the hands!" he said and immediately realized how his voice had come out louder than intended when Tony froze. Turning on his heel, Tony shot him a curious look before his expression melted into nonchalance. 

"You're still here?" Tony asked, making Steve frown and get up from his seat.

"You asked me to be here," he replied and got an incredulous laugh for his effort.

"Yeah, and you what, sat here waiting till I got here to get the files?," Tony rolled his eyes, nudging Bruce a bit as he made his way to a laptop stored in a cabinet above the notice board, "Honestly, it's like you're making Fury's concerns valid."

"Usually when someone asks you to sit in their office, you don't go around picking up their things. I didn't know it was different around _here_ ," Steve shot back and looked at Bruce, "no offence, Doc. And what do you mean, Fury's concerns?"

"He wants me to play it nice, handle you with kid gloves and be your babysitter," Tony replied absently as he tapped away at the laptop, hunched over it with his back facing Steve. Bruce winced and quickly hid his expression but Steve focused his attention on Tony with growing irritation.

"I don't need a  _babysi -"_

"Or a tour guide, I don't know, he wasn't specific about the designation," Tony clicked his tongue and went back to typing, fishing out a small pendrive and plugging it into the laptop, "You know, you being the famous FBI agent and whatnot. Wouldn't do good to get your disappointment in the working of us general folks."

"Really? Like my disappointment would ever effect the great Detective Tony Stark," Steve scoffed, sarcasm dripping from every word. Tony muttered something too jumbled under his breath but then cleared his throat and stood up straighter, hitting a key on the keyboard.

"Boy, you know me so well," Tony turned around and smirked at Steve before pulling out the drive, tossing it Steve's way, "It's encrypted and secure. Read it and catch up, possibly fast, we don't have much time. How much do you know about Spiderman?"

"Spiderman?" Steve repeated, turning the red and gold pendrive in his hand with a mild frown, noting the inscription of a knight's shield on it.

 

"Yeah, the urban legend?" Tony huffed sarcastically, looking up at Steve and squinting a bit before widening his eyes in incredulous exasperation, "Really? Were you buried under a rock for the last few years? Living in Space? Frozen in the Arctic? Because those can be the only excuses for not checking the internet every few weeks."

  
"You've got a point, Stark?" Steve shot back with a stony face, feeling his skin tense under the jab a bit and got an eyeroll for his trouble.

  
"He's, she's, whatever, they're like the Anonymous 2.0.," Tony explained, snagging a silver foil packet from Bruce's table as he walked aeound it towards Steve, "Also a bit like Assange if the guy weren't so press-happy about his work. Reels out the bad fish in the corporate arena through the net, like baiting them with tidbits of measly worms. Shut down an entire branch of Oscorp last month with the leak of their nanotech experimentation on human -"

  
"Why's this important to us?" Steve cut Tony short and held his gaze as the man came to stand before him, popping blueberries out of the packet he had opened.

  
"Because Spidey likes secrets and we like secrets too," Tony licked his lips, catching a couple of blueberry juice before flashing Steve a familiar but fake grin, "And our secrets might match up if we get the right bargain."

  
"You want to make a deal with an illegal hacker," Steve surmised, his jaw clenching involuntarily.

  
"Hacker is so old that you're practically becoming ancient even thinking that word," Tony shrugged and offered the pack of blueberries to Steve, "Also, he's only illegal because the legal system won't make use of him. Blueberry?"

  
"And you wonder why Fury went the extra mile to warn you about playing nice," Steve raised an eyebrow, not even eyeing the berries.

  
"You know that's not my style, Cap," Tony's smile seemed more forced but Steve could feel the weight of an unsought familiarity already straining his poise.

  
"Of course, and you're all about style, aren't you Detective Stark," Steve scoffed, noting the flash of something pass Tony's eyes but his blood was rushing in his ears.

  
"I'm sorry, aren't you the one who's new to this case?" Tony popped another berry into his mouth and began walking around Steve, Steve automatically turning in tune with his steps, "I get that you're all shiny new imported material from DC," Steve could practically feel the distaste in those two letters "and that you're here to help, but honestly, Rogers? What help do you think you're gonna be if you can't trust the instincts of the guy who practically made this case?"

  
"If I didn't trust you? I don't know, probably a help that was going to save someone," Steve shot back, biting back the words he knew would never help. _Save someone and not get them killed._

  
Tony stilled mid-chewing, his face growing horribly quiet in its expression, and Steve knew that he had heard the words nonetheless. He knew that Tony had heard the accusation that had remained buried for almost five years, and Steve felt a prick of guilt he knew was unwarranted because the truth couldn't be changed; no matter how much anybody could wish it for, it would still remain a wide chasm between lies that people became.

  
Tony sucked in a breath and opened his mouth but the moment of silence was broken when somebody's phone ran shrilly into the awkwardness. Steve had never felt that disappointed and grateful for Black Sabbath's _Iron Man_ as he did when he saw Tony swallow hard before digging into his jacket to pick out his phone. He looked down at his hands and pretended to focus on the pendrive as he heard Tony get halfway through a tense greeting.

"What?" Tony's sharp tone brought Steve's head up and he noted the man's eyes sharpen as he glared at the floor before looking up suddenly to shift his glare at Steve, "How is that - Okay,  _okay_ I got it, fine."

"Is everything -"

"We gotta run," Tony stuffed his phone into his jacket, cutting Bruce short, "Somebody just took out Hill and stole Fury's files."

Steve stuffed the drive in his pant pocket and shuffled out with Tony when the man began running out into the corridor. "Stark! Hold on, we need a plan!" Steve called out as he ran past two agents who nearly dashed into him, "What's going on?!"

"I have a plan!" Tony shouted back and weaved in between the crowds easily as he ran in full speed, making Steve work to keep him in sight.

Steve cursed under his breath but followed Tony, feeling his muscles snap into full focus when he crossed the third bay and found people tensed but frantic in a minor chaos. He tried to make sense of it but no one was in any state to pause and Steve knew that, so he kept running, not faltering when a slightly older officer joined him as he turned around to the stairs.

"Who're we chasing?" Steve asked as they both ran down the stairs, Tony having gotten lost in the chaos somewhere.

"Male, white, 6'1", black hair, green coat" the officer responded without losing beat, keeping match to Steve even as Steve raced on, "In possession of sensitive information, possibly has inside help."

Steve didn't swear but it was a close thing as he put in an extra burst of speed during the last stretch of stairs. He pushed opened the door to the parking lot and came to a jerky halt when a car whizzed past him, almost running him over.

"Fu- that him?" Steve cocked his gun and took aim but the officer came to a halt behind him with a single pant.

"That's Stark - shit," the officer exhaled and pulled out his talky, "Coulson to Main, Stark's in pursuit of our man, I repeat, Stark's in pursuit. Do we have back-up?"

" _Coulson, stand your ground_ ," the talky crackled and Steve looked around for an alternative even before the message ended, " _We have a second perpetrator in Lot 3._ "

"Do you have a bike?" Steve asked Coulson and the man looked mildly confused before nodding, "Good, give me the keys."

"I can't just -"

"I know Tony -," Steve had to bite back an expletive but he continued, "I know him and how he chases, alright? I can back him up."

Coulson looked at him for a moment before his expression cleared and he nodded shortly. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a Captain America keychain and tossed the key Steve's way.

"Don't lose him, Rogers," Coulson said and turned around, pointing at a blue bike across the lot, "That's the one." Before Steve could nod, the man was dashing towards his assigned spot to cover and Steve picked himself up in gear, rushing to the bike. The machine revved to life between his legs and Steve had only a moment to consider the situation before he rolled the bike onto the road in full speed.

-x-x-x-x-  
 

Rhodey had once asked Tony if he ever felt bitter about not having siblings. They had been drunk off a college fest's shitty beer, hands deep in some sweet dismantled engine when Rhodey had popped his weekly quota of philosophical questions. Tony didn't remember much of the lead up to that question but that was probably because he had been falling in love with another beautiful engine of his life. He, however, remembered telling Rhodey that he did have siblings. 

His father had created him out of his duty and engines out of passion, making them his fuel relatives in a sense. There were very few people who understood him like they did.

"Come on, buddy, come on," he muttered under his breath as he shifted gear and swerved smoothly away from a red sedan, the steering wheel skimming his fingers as he played it with control and abandon in equal parts, "Move out of the way, I swear, are all green Spark's numbnucks on the road?"

Shirley Bassey serenaded a British spy from his stereo and Tony clicked his tongue to the beat of  _Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_ as he kept sight of the terribly gauche black Impala with green streaks over its rear doors. His fingers tapped a binary code of a forgotten name on the steering as he gave berth to two cars before cutting in and giving wind to the acceleration. Tony knew these roads better than the back of his hand, and maneuvering them in his beautiful  _Mark II_ , named after Rhodey's favourite model of jets during his early years, since the lunatic had been the one to push Tony to buy it after leaving his old car in his dad's possession.

He could see the tail of the Impala and Tony pushed hard, driven to catch the bastard by his tail. When Beth had dropped the message, he had known why the attack had happened. And he had known who had done it. Especially since he had been studying the guy for the past month. Tony's communicator chirped but he ignored it, fully aware that he would get chewed out when he went back, but at the moment he didn't really care. Loki Odinson was one of the key players in the game Tony's case had become, if he had studied the patterns right. When Asgard Securities has been hit by Spiderman, there had been a thinly veiled code leaked onto Spidey's favourite forum. It was a four level code and Tony had found a lot of fellow geeks feel equally intrigued and wary of it. He had cracked it in five hours and had set out the few bits of information he had decoded into his files. Fury had confiscated those 'special' files a day ago from Tony for review and had made sure that Tony had erased other copies of it. Of course, Tony still had a coded copy of his own but the point was that someone, Loki Odinson quite surely, had found out about this information and had hit the bureau with the sole target of stealing that information. If Loki's name came out into the open as one of the nexus players in the scam Tony was investigating, the second heir to the multibillion company would not only lose hold of his shares but would also be permanently stripped of his upcoming venture of bio-secure solutions. 

The team back at the bureau would be out for Loki's blood for the attack but Tony had more riding on it than them at the moment.

The Impala swerved a sharp right into a connecting alley to a busier area and Tony grit his jaw as he shifted gears to follow it. This would be tricky, considering the time of the day and the crowd he knew would be gathering any time now. Just as he had thought, Tony found the street dotted with bikes, people and peddlers who would most probably be somebody's problem but not Tony's. The Impala ran down a garbage can and Tony barked a short laugh as he caught a kid throwing a crushed can at it while her mother yelled obscenities at the car. Just when Tony thought that he had reached considerably close to the car, he noted a window rolling down and had just a moment to brace before a gun came out to fire right at his windscreen. 

"Well, that's bad," Tony ducked and rolled down his own window to yell at the people on the road, "MOVE! GET INSIDE! MOVE! GUNFIRE MOVE!"

As was usual with such warnings, Tony saw a couple of teenagers freeze and move  _forwards_ toward the car instead of running away. Hitting the gas pedal, Tony sped up to the other side of the car and rammed against its side to stop the person from firing, He heard a gun shot but didn't have time to worry about it as he braced when the Impala swerved before ramming into his car with full force from the side. His shoulder hit the door but Tony kept his grip on the wheel and exhaled sharp as he tried to throw the Impala off his side. The cars kept up a parallel of speed as each tried to overtake and move forward, turning into a narrower fit of a road. Tony tried ramming one more time but he could feel the probability of it working get lower as the Impala revved higher. 

He was about to try a new tactic when the nearer window of the Impala rolled down and Tony turned to stare right into the mouth of a gun. And the face of a predicted green eyed man.

" _Loki_.." Tony lost his balance for a mere second but he knew that it would be enough for the man, and he expected a shot any second now.

The sound of a shot made Tony clench the wheel harder but he noted that the Impala had swerved and lost balance instead of his own window shattering. Snapping his eyes to his rear view, Tony choked a second when he caught a blue bike with a gun holding Steve chasing after them. 

"Well, whaddaya know?" Tony breathed out a bit shakily but before he could catch up to Loki, the car jumped the gas and rushed ahead on shot tyres. Tony almost gave chase but was cut off when a garbage truck came out of nowhere and blocked his way. "No, no,  _no_ ," Tony cursed when the truck passed to show an empty road, the Impala lost from sight. 

Tony slapped the wheel hard and let his head drop into his arm, muffling a frustrated groan as he lost the only chance to catch Loki Odinson. He jerked up though when his car door was pounded and he looked up to see a livid looking Steve glaring down at him.

"I almost got him, he was just -"

"Get out of the car," Steve bit out, cutting Tony short with the sheer force of his restrained fury, "Get out of the  _fucking_ car, Tony."

"Swearing? Well, that's not good," Tony raised an eyebrow but complied. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he found himself face to face with a red-faced and outraged Steve Rogers, his hands flexing at his sides and jaw clenched to the point of definite pain.

"What were you  _thinking_?!" Steve grit out and Tony felt himself bristle, an old habit falling over him like faded memory.

"I was thinking that I needed to catch someone vital for our case," Tony shot back, not giving an inch even as Steve's eyes flashed, "Or did you forget that this is what I do for a job?"

"No, but I wish I hadn't forgotten that this is how you do your job," Steve ground out, his lips tight in a small sneer and Tony swallowed a flinch, "How you never, goddamn think about back-up."

"I was fine," Tony pushed back, never backing down in this old scarred argument, "I never asked you to follow me or back me up!"

Steve snarled, he physically snarled at that but then pulled back and Tony hated, absolutely hated the cold drape over the man's face, covering the flash of emotions he had been showing till then.

"You're right. You never have," Steve said and Tony couldn't hide his flinch this time as he clearly understood what Steve was referencing, "No matter what the stakes."

"Steve, I -"

"This is  _not_ just your case anymore," Steve steamrolled Tony and looked at him with shadowed eyes, "You are  _not_ alone in this mission, no matter how much you want to be. So you can pull your little sass and chase, you can run, you can throw every bullshit move at me, but I'm not letting you or your tricks derail me from this. And I am not letting your 'style' of working affect this case. So the next time you run, Stark, the next time you pull this on me? I'm dumping your ass and taking over the case myself. And you can do nothing to stop me. Follow  _that_."

Tony watched in a growing sense of detached failure as Steve whirled around and stalked back to his bike, not once looking back at Tony.

"Won't be the first time you'd have dumped my ass," Tony muttered as Steve left, leaving him standing with a banged up car and a bitter taste in his mouth.

When he got back to the bureau, Tony got chewed out by Coulson, but he couldn't focus on it. Not when he caught sight of Steve talking to Fury across the room before leaving for his hotel, ignoring Tony completely.

It wasn't the first time Tony had been in that position. It hadn't been the first time Steve had done it either.

But it  _had_ been five years since it had happened last. And Tony didn't know if he would survive a remake of that disaster this time. 


	3. Chapter 3

When Steve had lived in Manhattan, a disgruntled Brooklyn boy who spent his time between cribbing about the 'colder' borough as Clint called it and pouring his admiration for it onto his makeshift sketchbooks, there hadn't been many places he had considered home. There had been Tony's loft that was really an overpriced bachelor's pad with a mad scientist vibe, the little Irish cafe by the park, Luke's bar beyond the alley where the homeless men met up for night time puppet shows, the bureau, the rickety bench in Mr. Lee's private park that Tony had dared him to trespass during the first month of their meeting, and Hogan's Gym. Donald Hogan, Happy's father, had been the manager then and Steve had spent many nights destroying his punching bags before chatting with him as they cleaned up the place. It had been nice, familiar, like the sting of the first frost wave every winter morning. It had grounded him.

His fist hit the bag and Steve shifted his stance as he studiously ignored how Donald Hogan wasn't the manager anymore, his older son arguing with a cleaner across the gym reminding him of that fact. The gym was the same, the lighting and sepia touched warmth still spartan in its feel, but the familiarity had changed. A lot of things had changed, Steve thought and let loose a vicious left hook that sent a tremor through his muscles. 

"That'll kill a man but not win you a war," he heard an amused voice call out behind him and exhaled hard with an involuntary quirk of his lips. 

"Aren't both the same things in your book?" he shot back without turning around, though he did step away from the bag and begin to untie his bandages from his hands. 

"Our books weren't written by the same author though, clearly," the voice quipped and Steve finally turned to see the familiar figure of Natasha Romanoff looking at him with an amused glint in her jade eyes. 

"Fancy seeing you here," Steve huffed on a smile because it was always the middle of a conversation with Nat, always picking up from where they'd left off. It was a case of beaten down humour with them, and an understanding of selective adjustment; Steve had known Nat through her worst days, when she had gotten entangled with the wrong mob on a case and had done things that a person without her experience would consider questionable. Clint had pulled her out of the ring, out of the mess with no more than a word to anyone about what it had cost them. Bucky had come barging into the bureau, eyes wild but hands calm, knowing that he would go home with something less but a lot more that day. Steve had simply accepted what Nat had said at face value, no questions asked, and had calmly but dangerously made sure that the same was written in the report. 

Steve remembered what Tony had done, in his indomitable, infuriating yet inimitable style, and knows that Tony had a similar but extremely different relationship with Nat. She had kept both of them alive through varying scenarios. 

"Fancy seeing you," Nat quipped back, an entire lecture in a single sentence and Steve bit back a wince because he also remembered the last time they'd met; he was sure Bucky remembered that with a higher degree of accuracy but Bucky had come away with a punch to his gut while Steve had gotten a cold glare of disappointment. 

"Yeah," Steve rolled his shoulders and smiled bleakly at the redhead, "Got busy in DC. Apparently, FBI doesn't stand for Foreign Born Irish and you have to actually work to stick around." 

It had been five years and Steve had faced down the toughest of criminals, but as he stood before a 5'7" redhead who could kill someone twice her size between her thighs, Steve felt like the skinny boy from Brooklyn he originally was. Natasha gave him her driest look before letting out a small sigh and quirking her lips. 

"Should I offer you a hug or beware of your stink?" she asked and Steve huffed before taking the step forward to let her wrap her arms around him in a brief but warm hug. Her hands are smaller than his but when she pats his back once, it's sharp and enough to leave a sting in its wake. 

“You’ve not been back for one day and already destroying bags again?” Nat laughed lightly and eyed the bag speculatively, “What is it exactly, hmm? Does it remind you of a shabbily dressed Phillips? Oh, wait, that amusing drunk down Bucky’s street? Hmm, yes, I can see the resemblance.”

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head with an amused smile. “Yeah, I bet you don’t get a rush punching shapeless bags,” he said and Nat grinned sharp at him, a flash of danger and dry humour.

“I like them a little more alive,” she said, her red hair slipping over her shoulder and Steve shot her an exasperated look.

“Your thirst for blood really needs to tone done, Ms. Heck,” he said and began unwrapping his hands, “So, how long did it take for you to find out?”

“About?”

Steve shot her a look over his shoulder and Nat raised an eyebrow before shrugging.

“It wasn’t Clint,” Nat rolled her eyes but was honest about things, “I work with Coulson too, y’know? And he’s a huge fan of yours,” she smirked, eyes twinkling a bit at Steve’s frown, “Oh yeah, he has this little dossier of  _ The Greatest Hits Of Steve Rogers  _ . I think he made a presentation out of it once for a training session of newbies.”

“Wonderful,” Steve flushed red, knowing that Nat could read the mortification and embarrassment on his face that would only egg her on, “Look, Nat -”

“The world doesn’t revolve around Tony Stark,” Nat cut him short and Steve felt his spine stiffen at her tone before he turned to see her eyes seem a little softer, “At least some of ours’ doesn’t.”

“Natasha -”

“You can’t run every time, Cap,” she said and the words echoed too loud in the silence of Steve’s head. Natasha never regretted her words so it was clear that she wouldn’t apologize, but she did sigh softly before moving forward to face him.

“He may be a lot of things but Tony isn’t a bad cop,” she said quietly not adding  _ or a bad person _ in words but reflecting it in tone, huffing lightly as though remembering something, “Steve, you left for a reason. You came back for a reason. As much as you or Clint or anyone might say it, neither of these was Tony. He didn’t make those choices for you; you did. And you came back knowing that he was in this case, so to be honest, that was your choice too.”

“This is a case,” Steve shot back, “ _ Our  _ case. It involves both of us and he ran with his plan like it never mattered.”

“Is it your case yet?”

“What?”

“You hardly knew Loki, right?” Natasha eyed Steve’s knuckles with an unimpressed look but looked back up at him, “He’s been tracking the guy long enough to know his life-story. I’m just saying, if you don’t know everything and you haven’t caught up yet, has it become your case yet?”

“Your charm never ceases,” Steve smiled sarcastically but breathed out, flexing his fingers slowly, “Why exactly are you here, Nat?”

“To take you to a party,” she grinned when he looked up in confusion, “What? You thought I came here to look at your moping face and sort out your issues? What do I look like, your babysitter?”

“I cannot tell you how much I don’t want to imagine that,” Steve said and ducked to escape a punch to his chest, “What party?”

“Coulson’s birthday party,” Natasha grinned at Steve’s swallowed groan.

“Hey, would you look at that, the punching bag still needs to be destroyed,” Steve attempted to pull away but Natasha raised an eyebrow at him and in two beats did a roundhouse kick right into the bag.

“Now, let’s party,” Natasha said as sand flew all around them.

-x-x-x-x-

Tony winced and leaned away when Clint threw an arm around him and dragged him close to yell in his ear the same line he had been singing for the past fifteen minutes.

"Oh God, somebody turn him off," Hope muttered, sipping at her whiskey and eyeing Clint with an exasperated look before looking at Scott, "Why is Clint the jukebox for tonight?"

"Because he broke the jukebox last week," Cage replied from the other side of the bar counter, shooting Tony a pointed look, "Something that someone promised to fix days ago -"

" _ Scott _ promised that, not me," Tony interjected, trying to pry his arm from Clint's grasp.

"- and I'm not gonna shell out cash for that shit. But yeah," Cage made a face when Clint took a higher pitch, "maybe somebody needs to stop him. Guy's singing in dog pitch."

"How does he sing well when he's sober and like," Scott made a vague gesture in Clint's direction from his spot near Hope, " _ this _ when he's two drinks in?"

"Luck," Coulson sighed as he walked over with a full glass of cider, shaking his head as he deftly unlatched Clint from Tony's arm, "Particularly,  _ bad luck _ . For us."

Tony hid his smirk in the Virgin Bloody Mary he was sipping, watching Clint hip bump his mentor and friend. The bar looked a good mix between classy and comfortable, the definition Natasha gave Tony when she told him to talk to Luke about renting out the place for the night. Nick had made an early appearance while he had dropped Coulson off to the surprise party and had stolen Scott’s first soda before leaving. The others from work were there even now, some of them trying to mimic a slow dance to the tunes Coulson had picked on the stereo while ignoring Clint’s yelling of  _ Chattahoochee _ because Clint became a country boy when the alcohol hit his brain.

Hope neatly lifted her arm and kept her drink away from Scott’s sneaking hands, making Tony chuckle at Scott’s dramatic sigh. 

It had taken a while for him to get used to this ever-growing group of people at first. When Tony had graduated from the Academy, he had Steve by his side even if Rhodey was on the path to conquer the skies and Bucky adamantly chose to be a fireman instead of wearing the badge. Steve and him had made their peace with their respective best friends climbing their own ladders and had been each other’s partners from their beginning. Clint had been there and so had Nat but they had been different, a bit outside. Losing Steve had been the most prominent speed-bump Tony had encountered and he knew that many still thought that he hadn’t recovered from it.

Unlike some things he  _ had _ recovered from, thankfully.

“Where’s Natasha?” Maria asked and Tony shrugged as he turned around on his stool, eyeing the entrance.

“She said she’s bringing a surprise gift,” Hope quipped, downing her drink and signalling Cage for another with a familiar nod, “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”

“For Phil or us?” Maria asked and Tony saluted her with his drink even as Coulson resignedly danced with Clint and Jasper on the floor.

“You remember the last time Tasha gave someone a gift?” Hope laughed and Maria snorted, “I don’t think Vanko has still recovered from that tarantula scare.”

“It’s still not as bad as your flashmob gift to Ward,” Tony pointed out to Maria, grinning as she shrugged a shoulder, “The guy looked so  _ harassed _ .”

“He was a frickin Nazi,” Hope spat and Tony leaned back as the two women clinked glasses, nodding his agreement.

“Well, considering our current political climate,” Tony snorted bitterly but trailed off, grinning when he caught sight of a familiar redhead in a black jacket, “Speak of the Widow and the Devil walks in.”

Maria turned around and whistled when Natasha walked into the room, her leather jacket setting off the copper curls, a slow forming smirk on her face as she nodded at them.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Scott whooped and then cleared his throat when everyone shot him unimpressed looks, “Listen, it sounds good in movies.”

“So does bullshit science,” Hope rolled her science and saluted her drink in Natasha’s direction, “Where’s the surprise?”

“What, no hello for me?” Natasha stole Tony’s glass and took a sip before smoothly putting it back and hopping on to the seat next to Maria, “Stark paying for the drinks?”

“It’s an open bar and you’re rude,” Tony shook his head but Natasha was already signalling for a vodka and seltzer, “Why’re you a stereotype, Red? Vodka? Again?”

Natasha winked at Tony and this was familiar, this was their comfort. Nobody cut through his bullshit like the redheads in his life and Tony had learnt to appreciate them over the absence of those he sought. He huffed in mock indignation when Natasha tried to steal his drink again and pulled it away from her reach.

“Rude”

“You can get your own drink”

“Such a miser,” Natasha teased with a wicked gleam in her eyes, “And after I went to get you such a good surprise.”

“What are you -”

“Hey! Rogers!” somebody crowed, Jasper by the sound of it, and Tony met Natasha’s eyes sharply. The narcotics detective simply raised an eyebrow, challenging him to say something.

“So  _ that’s _ your surprise,” Maria muttered and Tony could hear the smirk in her tone before she pitched her voice louder, “Hey, Rogers! Nice of you to join us!”

“Agent Rogers,” Coulson joined in, and Tony looked his way to see him mildly flustered before he smiled cordially and shook Steve’s hand, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Sorry,” Steve looked sheepish and nodded in Natasha’s direction, “She didn’t give me any time to get you a gift. Happy birthday though. I hope I’m not disturbing your celebrations -”

“Nonsense,” Natasha cut him off and grinned slyly at Coulson, “You’d make Phil’s day by signing his trading cards. I don’t think any gift would compare to  _ that _ .”

“Trading...cards?” Steve looked between Coulson and Natasha but Coulson shot Natasha a sharp look before shaking his head at the blond.

“She likes to exaggerate,” he waved his hand and winced when Clint began singing again, “Um, sorry, I’ve got to wrangle him again. Please, settle in, grab a drink. Tony, get him a drink?”

Tony look a long gulp of his drink and glanced at Steve before waving at Luke. Who saw Steve and clearly recognized him, going by the grin that broke out on his face.

“Cap! What’re you doing out here? Man, are you back?” the large bartender came by and Tony resisted moving when Steve came closer to offer Luke a handshake, “When’d you drop in?”

“Today,” Steve shook his hand and grinned as he eyed Luke’s trademark yellow uniform, “Still stuck on the yellow, huh?”

“Hey, I make it look good,” Luke laughed and Tony forgot to bite back a snort, making Cage point at him accusingly, “Shut it, Stark. It’s definitely better than your birthday suit the first time you dropped by.”

“It was a classic!”

“Gold pants a size too tight are not classic,” Steve snorted and Tony pushed down the urge to freeze, looking up with a grin instead. They both knew the pants he was talking about and Tony didn’t want to break the fragility of this acknowledgement. 

“I made it a classic though,” he shot back, leaning back on an elbow and shrugging at Steve, “You know how much it sold for?”

“I cannot believe you auctioned your hooker pants,” Hope rolled her eyes.

“E-bay is for one and all,” Tony reminded her and high-fived Scott across her. Turning back to Steve, he caught sight of the man eyeing the surroundings awkwardly before schooling his features quickly.

He attempted a smile when Steve caught his gaze and saw him try one too.

It was absolutely horrible and Tony took a long draw of his virgin drink.

-x-x-x-

“Hemsworth, Pine, and Evans,” Bruce read out, mildly swaying to his side but righting himself blinking at Phil who shrugged, before nodding at Tony.

“Sitwell’s bringing out the tough ones!” Clint clapped him on the back and Bruce almost fell onto Phil, who elbowed him in the stomach.

“It’s obvious,” Scott scoffed and leaned against Hope’s shoulder, “Everybody wants to bone Hemsworth.”

“Bone!” everybody shouted and took a shot of their drinks, throwing curses at Scott for using it before time.

Steve laughed into his shot glass, pouring himself a little more from the larger glass he had originally started with. The party had officially ended a while back but a few of them had stayed back. Luke had stared Tony down till Tony had told him to go home and had promised to get a cleaning service sort out the mess.

“I can’t believe you hired Luke to come here from Harlem just to bartend,” he snorted and eyed Tony, stifling a chuckle when the brunet choked on his fifth mocktail in a hurry to answer.

“He’s the only one who makes all the dumb cocktails Clint comes up with,” Tony shrugged and leaned back against the counter he was sitting in front of, “Also, he banged up his car last week and the money would be cool. But importantly, he can handle Clint  _ and _ Scott’s ridiculous drinks, so honestly, it wasn’t a choice.”

“Sure,” Steve looked at Tony with an old faded fondness before clearing his throat and looking ahead, “That’s the reason. Right. Clint and Scott.”

“Obviously”

“Stark, focus!” Clint threw a balled up napkin at Tony and the man made a face but looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“Hemsworth, Pine, and Evans,” Bruce repeated, “Pick your options.”

“Right,” Tony frowned and rubbed at his jaw, “Hemsworth is...bust”

“What is  _ wrong  _ with -”

“He’s a surfer dude,” Tony pointed at Scott, “And he’s got muscles on muscles. Guy’s enough to give a complex to anyone. Screw him, I’ll bust him up.”

Steve didn’t join the booing from the others but that was because he already knew Tony’s choices. He knew Tony’s type, thanks to years of being his rant-buddy.

“ _ Pine _ ,” Tony spoke over the commotion, “is cool. He’s also Captain Kirk, so that’s a score.”

“So, baby daddy?” Clint cooed and Natasha rolled her eyes as she took a swig of her beer.

“Nope,” Tony grinned at him, “Bone.”

“Makes sense,” Bruce nodded sagely and Tony was already tossing back his shot glass of red mocktail as everyone yelled  _ Bone! _

“Now,  _ Evans _ ,” he said as he licked his lips free of lingering mocktail and pointed his empty glass at Bruce, “that’s some solid baby daddy material, right there.”

“He’s a meatball,” Steve snorted with a grin and caught the napkin Scott threw his way, “What? He really is.”

“And  _ what  _ a meatball,” Tony batted his eyes, laughing when Clint fake gagged.

The game went on till they decided to end with Steve.

“C’mon, chicken,” Tony smirked lightly, waggling his brows when Steve protested, “don’t be a party pooper. Last one and we wrap up.”

Steve shot him a look for the chicken comment but sighed and nodded at Natasha who held the chit for him.

“Depp, Damon, Downey Jr.,” she read out and hooted with the others at the eye-roll Steve shot her.

“Depp is bust,” he said and everybody nodded knowingly; Steve’s dislike of abusers was pretty evident to those present.

“Damon,” Steve hummed for a moment before shrugging, “is  _ bone _ .”

“Bone!” everybody crowed and Steve took a shot of his own drink too.

“Really?” Tony asked, still holding his full glass, a mildly confused expression on his face, “You’re rather bone Matt Damon than Robert Downey Jr.?”

“Downey is more of a,” Steve searched for the word, “long term bone candidate. Damon is a one-time-try.”

“So Downey is your …”

“Baby daddy?” Steve asked dryly and Tony toasted him with the drink but then Steve spotted an ant on the rim of the glass. 

He really did intend to just stop Tony from drinking but he underestimated his force and ended up smacking the glass instead of stopping him. The chatter around them died down as Steve watched the mocktail fall all over Tony’s shirt, red seeping into the pale cloth in damning stains. Tony had frozen, staring down at his shirt, before he slowly looked up with wide eyes at Steve.

“There was an ant,” Steve said faintly but Tony kept staring.

“Ants are the best,” Scott cheered from the side, hushed by Hope.

Tony took a deep breath and opened his mouth before deflating with a shake of his head.

“And that’s an end to this party”.

Steve felt vaguely guilty as Coulson and the gang bade their goodbyes to him and Tony. Coulson simply rolled his eyes and assured him that they had fun, but he also had a singing Clint hanging on his arm so he hurried out of there anyway. 

“Do you want any help?” Steve asked when it was just him and Tony, after they had tried to clean up the mess as best as they could. Tony was blotting the drink with napkins but looked up and Steve clarified, “Your shirt is ruined and … You could take my jacket. You’ve got to get home and this looks like blood now.”

“Nah,” Tony chucked the napkin into the trash and grimaced at the way the shirt stuck to him, “I’ll just change.”

“You can’t travel with a blood-stained looking shirt, Tony”

“I know,” Tony shot Steve an exasperated look before his face cleared and an expression of understanding dawned, “Oh, I don’t have to travel. No, I live here.”

Steve opened his mouth and shut it.

“You live - here?”

“Upstairs,” Tony waved his hand in the ceiling’s direction, “Obie had this building in his name and wanted me to keep in touch with him at times, so he gave it to me. I don’t have use for the whole place so I live in the loft upstairs and rent this place out for events and other things.”

“This is a bar,” Steve said pointedly, looking around again.

“Technically, it  _ has _ a bar,” Tony shrugged and sighed when Steve shot him a look, “Look just - what do you want?”

“You live above a  _ bar _ , Tony,” Steve didn’t want to pick a fight but old memories were muddling with some hidden annoyance, “You’re basically making it easier on yourself to -”

Steve cut himself off, a sharp sigh breaking free as he tried to breathe through the bitterness.

“To what?” Tony asked, low and quiet, and Steve looked at him, “To drink? Be a drunk? Be the alcoholic who ruins everything?”

“That’s not - this is ridiculous,” Steve shook his head, looking away and gritting his jaw, “Just go change your shirt. I’ll leave.”

“No, you know what, no,” Tony shot back sharply and Steve flexed his hand but didn’t look at him, “Let’s do this. You’re obviously itching to say things and the more we put this off, the more we’ll have incidents like today morning’s.”

“Today morning was you running off the grid,” Steve shot back, “This isn’t about today morning.”

“But it obviously is about what tomorrow and the rest of this case will be,” Tony laughed bitterly, “You’re never gonna trust me now that you know I live above a  _ bar _ .”

“It’s not the bar, it’s  _ you _ living above it!”

“Why? What do you think I’ll do? Drink and drive?”

“Tony”

“What? Lose my senses and spoil the investigation?”

“ _ Tony _ ”

“Drink and kill someone? Let someone die?!”

“Won’t be the first time!” Steve snapped and whirled around, voice too sharp in its echo and breath coming hard as he met Tony’s gaze finally. He couldn’t take the words back as they lay open in the air between them and Steve could feel the weight of them as the silence stretched. He knew that it was harsh and bitter, something he would regret saying, but it was out now and Steve could see Tony think the same thing. The dark truth that shattered everything five years ago. 

“Tony, I’m - I didn’t mean to -” Steve dragged in a deep breath and tried to find words but Tony shook his head.

“No, you’re right,” he said, voice dull but Steve could see the way his eyes had clouded over, the shadows of the past in them, “It won’t be the first time.”

“I’m -”

“But that was the last time,” Tony continued, taking a deep breath and meeting Steve’s eyes square, a faded image of a friend in his eyes, “Not that it’s any consolation, right?”

Steve swallowed the lump in his throat as memory flashed the image of a 11 year old boy with fake brown hair laughing, a melting ice-cream cone in his hand. A pair of familiar light blue eyes widening in fear as a gun cocked to the temple. A scream, an escaped thief, a falling body.

Tony clutching a bloody boy. Steve clutching at thin air. A failed mission.

It felt like breaking out of ice when Steve forced himself back to the present and he could see Tony’s haunted expression, knowing that he was remembering the same thing. 

“I should go change,” Tony said after a long silence, voice shaking a little before he wrested it under control and began moving towards the stairs. He paused near the end and turned his head slightly.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I don’t drink anymore. Fourth year sober now.”

Steve felt something drop in his gut during the pause before Tony chuckled tiredly.

“I’m not making anything easier on myself, Steve. That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

Steve watched Tony climb up to his loft and felt like he had shattered more than either of them had five years ago.

When they had lost Ian to a mission gone wrong. When Tony had later almost burned his house down in his alcoholic stupor.

When Steve had left his best friend in anger, swearing to never see him again.

He closed his eyes and breathed out. Opening his eyes, he walked towards the stairs to go up. 

Maybe he could fix the mistakes of today, if not of the past.

-x-x-x-

Tony threw his shirt into the laundry basket and pushed down the urge to scream.

He had known, he had known right when he had seen Steve again that this would be a mess. It had been five years since the tragedy, and both of them had moved on in their friends’ and colleagues’ eyes. But Tony knew - he knew that neither of them had really moved on from the day they had lost a young witness, a young boy under their protection, to a foolish mission. Ian had been personal, a kid Steve’s then-potential girlfriend Sharon had rescued from a ring. Steve and Tony had been given his charge and Tony remembered, he remembered every detail of the time they had spent with that kid. 

He remembered how empty he had felt as he held the boy’s dead body in his arms.

Steve had gone off the handle in his way and Tony had lost it in his own. While Steve took to repression, Tony had taken to drinking endlessly, trying to numb the pain.

Tony could still remember the look in Steve’s eyes when he had rescued Tony from his own burning home. He remembered the pause before their ultimate fight had begun.

Steve had accused Tony of having being drunk on the mission, having put everything at risk. Tony had been too drunk to defend himself logically, and had instead taunted Steve.

Things had ended when Tony’s test results of post-mission had come and his blood reports had shown alcohol’s presence.

Steve had left the next day, before Wanda’s whole mistake had -

“Tony?”

Steve’s voice brought him out of his memory trip and Tony shook his head, pulling a shirt from the closet and slipping it on.

“What is it?” he asked, pulling down his shirt when his phone rang and he paused, “Just a second, phone.”

“Hello?”

“Tony! Where are you?”

“Nat?” Tony frowned at the tensed voice, “What’s going -”

“ _ Where are you _ ?”

“At home, what’s going on?”

“Is Steve with you?”

“Yeah,” Tony shot a look over his shoulder at the closed door before turning back.

“Good,” Natasha declared, a sharp sigh leaving her voice, “Make him stay there. You have your security upgraded, right?”

“Natasha, what’s going on?” Tony asked even as he walked towards his secret code-pad and checked his security upgrades.

“Coulson was shot,” she said and Tony stilled, breath leaving him in a rush, “Clean shot to the heart. Close range. His neighbour heard a breaking sound and called the cops.”

“Do we have a suspect?” Tony ran the names through his mind and tried to single out the possible ones.

“Tony,” Natasha paused and Tony felt his blood run cold. Natasha never paused. “Clint is being taken in. Tony, he was found with the gun. Clint shot Coulson.”

Tony had to swallow twice to get his throat working and breathed in.

“That’s not possible. Clint would never shoot Coulson.”

“His prints were scanned,” Natasha said, a tightness entering her voice, the anger and pain of losing friends searing, “They match.”

“Tony?” Steve’s voice called out again and Tony’s feet moved, moving towards the door. He pulled it open but focused on the phone, moving back inside without bothering with Steve.

“What do you suspect?” he asked and heard Steve come in quietly.

“Can’t say,” Natasha replied, siren blaring in the background, “But Tony, this is a set-up.”

“I know,” Tony breathed out and ran a hand through his hair, “Somebody is setting Clint up and they used Coulson. They  _ shot _ Coulson to set Clint up.”

“Possible," Natasha agreed, "But it could also be that someone needed to shoot Coulson and Clint was the sacrificial lamb for it. You got any theories?”

“None,” Tony clicked his tongue frustratedly, mind running in all cycles. He turned around and paced towards Steve mindlessly. “Why would anyone shoot Coulson? He didn’t have any big cases recently. There’s no reason to target him. No reason to -”

Tony trailed off and stared at Steve, who was looking at him alertly, having heard the bit about Coulson being shot. He stared at Steve and his brain worked in overdrive, a sinking realization coming to the front.

“They weren’t targeting Coulson,” he whispered, “They were targeting the bike owner who attacked Loki today. Who shot at Loki. The biker who had a helmet on, but who’s bike number and model were visible.”

Tony saw the minute it struck Steve and he stood straighter, a grim look falling on his face.

“Steve used Coulson’s bike today,” Tony said, his voice turning cold, “They weren’t looking to shoot Coulson, Nat. They were looking to shoot Steve.”

Tony could hear Natasha curse quietly on the other line but his attention was fixed on the man standing before him. He quietly cut the call and looked at Steve.

“Looks like the case just got more complicated,” Steve said, calm but sharp in focus.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed quietly, “And it looks like you’re staying with me now, with a target on your back.”

Steve looked like he was going to protest for a second before he swallowed hard and nodded.

“Then let’s get working.”


	4. Chapter 4

Steve shifted on the surprisingly well-cushioned couch and stared up at the ceiling, hearing the white noise of waves that Tony had set on his phone for some reason. There were glow-in-the-dark paint streaks, a constellation map on a ceiling that sported a stain in sunlight. There was Andromeda in precise strokes and angles, stretching out into a fading darkness before Circinus shot out in a streak of light. There was Orion, Hercules, the Zodiac set; it was the universe on a wall. It was Tony on a sky.

Steve breathed out long and rubbed his feet on the couch’s edge, feeling the softness soothe some unnamed ache.

The light from the bed was faced away from him, hitting the wall behind it as Tony quietly typed on his laptop, making some notes on his tablet simultaneously. The clock beside the bed read 1 a.m and the blue glow from the digits blinked eerie as Steve stared at them from his couch.

The typing paused, an insistent rapid hit of backspace followed, and Steve closed his eyes to take a long breath as the typing resumed.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, shattering the silence and Tony made a vague hum even as he continued reading whatever he had on the laptop.

“Nothing conclusive,” Tony grunted and Steve shifted onto his side to see the man holding a pen between his teeth as he marked something on the tab before taking it out to scratch something on a notepad that had joined his arsenal at some point.

“The inconclusive stuff have anything added?” Steve asked because it was always better to pick your battles with Tony, always better to push at the seams than the dents.

It was probably ironic how things remained the same when time changed.

“Just some numbers,” Tony ran a hand over his face and Steve could see his jaw shift in the light of the laptop, “This is wider than I thought. The IPs stretch, they bounce and shift with every dump. This is going to complicate things. There’s not just  **one** Spider-man, there’s a whole network of them. Shit.  _Shit_.”

“We just need to find one,” Steve told him, calm and assured in his tone. He didn't pause to think how this was muscle memory, playing rationale to Tony's panic. “We need just _one_ hold, Tony.”

“And we haven't found that yet!” Tony snarled into his hand, face pressed into his palms.

“And  _it's been 3 hours_ ,” Steve amended, breathing out slowly and tucking his hand under his head, “Tony..”

“Nick is an absolute bastard for doing this. He can't ban us from going in, not now,” Tony ran a hand through his hair and looked up at Steve, "I tried hacking into our systems-"

"You  _what_?"

"-but I can't change anything without tripping off the main unit," Tony finished, ignoring Steve's interjection, "I just - I  _know_  Clint didn't -"

"I know," Steve agreed and sighed, getting up to sit on the couch, "Tony, I know that it wasn't Clint. And I  _know_  that we need to crack this. But we're not going to do it by exhausting ourselves right now. Just - how about this?" Steve leaned forward, "You take a break and sleep, and I'll go over the info."

"What? You don't need sleep?" Tony raised an eyebrow but Steve shrugged.

"We'll rest in shifts. And I already rested a while," he offered, voice going softer, "We're working this together, Tony. You're good at what you do, but sometimes a fresh pair of eyes opens things up."

Tony looked mutinous for a few minutes but Steve stayed silent and firm, waiting for him to work out the pros and cons in his mind. Finally, Tony breathed out, shoulders slumping a little, and nodded.

"One hour," he said and scrubbed his face, "I'll catch an hour. But you get anything and you wake me up."

"Two hours and I'll wake you up as soon as I find anything," Steve bartered, meeting Tony's narrowed eyes with calm ones till the brunet shrugged.

Steve padded up to the bed and took the laptop, tablet, and pad from Tony, pulling up a chair to the table near the bed to settle down. He could feel Tony watching him for five minutes but then the man pulled up the covers and shut his eyes thankfully. The typing on the laptop and scritches of pen against paper were the only sounds to accompany Tony's light snores and Steve eyed him quietly for a minute before getting back to work.

An hour later, he had circled down two possible core points of information and decided to stretch a little. There was a double-window in the room, the glass panes smudged with writings of some old data. The weather was cold outside and Steve remembered enough of Tony know how much he hated the cold; probably as much as Steve himself did. He leaned against the wall near the window and stretched his back, feeling his muscles pop a little, and casually looked down the window only to freeze.

Somebody was entering the building. The man wore a hoodie and made a frustrated gesture when he couldn't open the lock of the gate before he crouched, pulling out some device from his jacket. Steve watched him open the gate and put the device back in his pocket, pulling on the hood a little before he walked inside. 

Steve shot a quick look at Tony, who was still blissfully asleep. He could wake him up and go down to check, but Tony would never rest again. He had hardly rested in the past few days, going by the bags under his eyes, and Steve hesitated. He looked at Tony for a minute before walking towards the couch and picking his own gun. He made sure to shut the door behind him as he got out of the room quietly and cocked his gun at ready, slowly feeling his way downstairs. 

There was the sound of footsteps walking across the hall downstairs and Steve held his breath as the intruder hummed under his breath. He peeked around the corner of the stairs and waited till his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He couldn't see the guy's face but he caught sight of a knife that the man was flipping in his hand. Moving quietly, Steve gripped his gun steadily and waited till the man's back was turned before lunging at him. 

"Freeze," he warned and like every bad movie villain, the guy moved, ducking faster than an untrained civilian or a petty thief. The guy pulled Steve's arm to the front and twisted, and Steve moved with the flow, using his strength to counter the pull. They crashed into the wall and Steve felt his gun get knocked out of his hand. He struck out with his knee and threw punches to the man's ribs and the intruder moved back, throwing punches of his own. There was a crash and a couple of grunts, till Steve felt an open hit to his gut, doubling over but springing back up with a punch to the jaw. 

They tumbled around and fell to the ground, both trying to overpower the other and Steve felt the outline of his gun near his fingers, scrambling to reach it.

He had his hand around it when the lights came on.

"Freeze and put your hands where I can see them," Tony ordered, voice crisp and form tense as he held his own gun trained on them. Steve pushed the man off him and stood up, training his own gun at him.

In the light, Steve finally got to see the intruder. A blond with some scruffy stubble, the man was almost as tall as Steve, a grey sweatshirt and blue jeans on him. His eyes were confused when they landed on Steve but strangely cleared when he saw Tony, a relieved smile taking its place.

"Holy Shit, Stars," he exhaled and moved towards Tony, "Good timing. Know this weirdo? Do we call your office or can you take him in?"

"Steve - what," Tony put his gun down and Steve frowned as he sighed before smiling weakly at the intruder, "For fuck's sake, Quill, really? You weren't supposed to be here for another two days. What're you doing here?"

"Work got over early," Quill replied with a shrug and eyed Steve, "So, you know this guy?"

"That's Steve Rogers," Tony said as he put his gun in his back, shaking his head, "My new partner for a case."

"Ah, cool," Quill nodded and shot Steve a sloppy salute, "Peter Quill. I live here. Not an intruder."

"You -," Steve lowered his gun and glanced at Tony, "He lives here?"

Tony rubbed the back of his neck and Steve felt foolish standing with his gun but then Tony nodded.

"Yeah, Prince here moved in a year ago," he gestured to Quill, who was now slicing an apple, something Steve found made sense since he had seen a knife, "He has a place in the suburbs -"

"But it's not my kind of place," Quill grinned at Tony and it was a familiarity, a strange intimacy in that grin. Steve felt his gut clench for some unknown reason but then shook it off, focusing on Quill.

"I saw you break in," he informed, glancing between Tony and him, "I watched you break the lock with something."

Tony turned to look at Quill with a frown but the other guy looked sheepish.

"Yeah, that," he shrugged at Tony, "I forgot my code again, sorry."

Tony opened his mouth and shut it with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with a shake of his head.

"You could have just called me," he said in a tired voice but Quill smiled and bumped shoulders with Tony.

"The last time I called to ask you to let me in, you set the toaster to burn my toast," he laughed and Tony pushed at his shoulder with a huff before looking over at Steve.

"He's fine, Steve, he has a room down here," he waved a hand in the air, "Peter works with NASA so he keeps erratic hours, days and even months."

Steve looked to argue, to demand that they make a change in plans of stay because they were in a tense situation but Quill was watching him with an interested expression, eyes flitting between him and Tony. Swallowing his complaints, Steve nodded and watched Quill squeeze Tony's shoulder before walking aay to his room. He paused at a distance though and turned around, a gleeful expression on his face.

"Wait a second," he pointed at Steve, "Steve Rogers?  _The_  Steve Rogers? You're the Captain?  _Tony's_  Captain?"

"Quill..."

"No, no, wait," Quill waved off Tony's warning, grinning at Steve, "Holy shit, dude. So you're finally back. After all this time, you're finally  _back_. Oh this is gold!"

"I'm sorry, you know me?" Steve asked, a wary expression but Tony's face was pinched and he was glaring at Quill.

"Know you?" Quill laughed and rubbed his hands together, "Oh man, I've  _been_  you. The number of times Tony has called me Steve is just - wow."

"Okay, let's just -"

"Called you Steve?"

"Oh yeah," Quill's grin turned sharp and an unreadable look passed his eyes, "Lots of times. At night."

"You can go now," Tony said, hard and tense but Steve's focus was on Quill, trying to make sense of his words.

"Yeah, yeah," Quill snorted and winked at Tony before sauntering to his own room.

Steve looked at Tony who looked like he had swallowed poison, tense and weary. The innuendo was hinted and Steve wasn't naive but this - this was  _Tony_. Tony didn't like him like that. And he wouldn't - they had never been that way, or thought that way. And it had been five years since they met. And -

Steve felt a headache come on but Tony sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

"Tony, I -"

"He was just kidding, Steve," Tony spoke over him, a tired but small smile on his face, "Sometimes I fall asleep down here and he dumps me in my bed, because I would be exhausted. I accidentally called him Steve once or twice then, thinking that - it was a ridiculous slip of the tongue but Quill likes to tease. Forget it."

Steve nodded, mind racing but not clear. Tony frowned after a minute, eyes sharp.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" he asked, "When you saw him breaking in, why did you come down here alone?"

"I - you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you up," Steve replied, internally wincing at the sincerity in his voice. Tony's expression was unreadable before it disappeared into a poker face.

"Fine, let's just get back to work," he said and started climbing back up, "And this time try to stick to the 'together' part and tell me if there's trouble. Rules don't just apply to me."

"Rules never have applied to you," Steve muttered under his breath but exhaled and followed Tony to their room -  _Tony's_  room.

He shook his head and wondered if he was losing his mind.

-x-x-x-

The first location they decided to check out the next day was Phil's neigbourhood in Queens. Tony had gotten into an argument with Fury about letting them include the shooting in their case but it had been in vain; not that either Steve or Tony exclued it in their minds.

"You sure this is the place?" Steve asked, eyeing the door of the apartment Tony had traced after Steve's core shortlist the previous night. It was an apartment below Phil's, registered to Ms. Stacy, a veteran, going by the records they had managed to track down. 

"Yeah," Tony removed his sunglasses and looked at the corridor, "This is what the IP tracked to."

"You been here before?" Steve removed his own sunglasses and put them inside his jacket.

"To Phil's place? Sure. This floor? Yeah, definitely," Tony shot Steve a look, "To this apartment? No."

Steve nodded and moved forward to knock at the door.

"Ms. Stacy? NYPD and FBI, please open the door," he called out and Tony palmed his gun, shifting to the side, waiting for Steve's signal.

Steve knocked again, louder this time. "Ms. Stacy, open the door, NYPD and FBI".

"Hey, guys?"

Both of them whirled around, ready to fire, but met the sight of a teenage boy of maybe 15 or 16 years. The boy was standing at the entrance of the corridor, a sandwich in hand and earphones hanging around his neck, a bewildered but wary expression in his brown eyes that tracked both men.

"Shit, sorry, hey Pete," Tony said and Steve shot him a look, "Steve, this is Peter. Peter Parker. He lives with his aunt on Phil's floor, she's a manager at  _Jones' Corner_."

"Hey, Mr. Stark," Peter waved hesitantly and Steve realized his gun was still up. He lowered it and put it back in his holster, nodding at Peter.

"What're you doing here, buddy?" Tony asked, moving forward, past Steve, "Don't tell me you're bunking school. Peter Parker, my  _gosh_."

Peter's lips twitched at the exaggerated gasp from Tony and he shrugged, shoulders relaxing.

"Yeah, it's a sports event today and," the boy made a face, coughing a little, "let's just say my physical coordination is the source of hilarity. I was taking an off to work on my Chemistry project instead. What're you doing here?"

"Cop stuff," Tony clapped a hand on Peter's shoulder and eyed the sandwich, "Playing hooky and pastrami? Nice style, Peter Pan."

"Get your own," Peter laughed and shot Steve a look above Tony's shoulder, "Um, you guys here for Mrs. Stacy?"

"You know her?" Steve asked, moving forward himself and Peter shrugged again.

"She used to live here," he said, looking at the door before back at Steve, "Shifted a year ago. Aunt May said that they were going to Florida. "

Steve and Tony exchanged a look before Tony wrapped an arm around Peter's shoulder.

"What do you know about her, Pete? Can you help us find her? Any information on what she does, who lives with her?"

"Well, uh," Peter shuffled forward and cleared his throat, "She worked as a chef at  _Hardison_  and Gwen, her daughter, used to study with me, but I don't think I know why they shifted? What's - is there something wrong? Is this about the shooting at Phil's?"

"Nothing to worry," Tony waved it off but steered Peter closer to the stairs, "Hey, you know what? How about you take my number and call me if you find any information on Mrs. Stacy, okay? We'll ask your Aunt anyway, but if you hear something, you call me directly. Okay?"

"I don't - I don't want to be in trouble," Peter hedged and Steve stepped up.

"You won't be in trouble, Peter," he smiled down at him, "Don't worry, we won't involve you in anything you shouldn't be in. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Just, talk to your Aunt and if you do find something, do let us know. We won't drag you into anything."

"People who drag into trouble usually say that," Peter pointed out and Tony laughed at Steve's expression.

"That's right, but you know us. You know me," he said and let Peter go, "Listen, do as you see best. If you think something's wrong and you want help, you call us. You see anything out of the ordinary, you call us and we'll make sure nothing affects you or May. We're not pressurizing you to do anything other than keep an eye out, Pete. Things are looking strange and you need to stay safe, that's all. Okay?"

Peter looked between Tony and Steve for a minute before he nodded.

"Alright," he said and bit into his sandwich, "I'll get going now. Bye, Mr. Stark."

"One of these days you're gonna learn to say Tony!" Tony yelled down the stairs as Peter laughed back.

"Sure, Mr. Stark," Peter yelled back, "Good luck. Bye, Cap!"

"Bye, Peter," Steve said and sighed, looking at Tony, "Now what do we do?"

"We could always run a search on all Stacys in Florida," Tony offered but Steve shook his head.

"It seems too convenient," he replied, "This location became active nine months ago and -"

"Steve?" Tony frowned when Steve trailed off and stilled, "What's wrong?"

"He called me Cap," Steve said, looking at Tony with wide eyes, "How did he know my old nickname? I never told him that."

Tony's eyes widened too.

"You didn't even introduce yourself," he said, a faint horror rising in the back of his throat as he exchanged a look with Steve, "I just called you Steve."

"Spider-man knew our files," Steve added, taking a deep breath, "He would have -"

"-hacked into it right after last night or even before," Tony finished and both of them looked down the stairs.

"Oh shit"

They rushed down the stairs, running at full speed and entered the street just in time to see Peter's cycle leave the street. Tony watched in horror as Peter left the street and an Impala cut in, window rolling down and a barrel of a gun came out.

A gunshot rang and the swerve of tires echoed.

Tony took off running, not bothering to pause for Steve, eyes fixed on a fifteen-year-old boy, who could very well be a criminal. Peter had swerved and ducked, somehow escaping the shot and fell off his cycle, scrambling to get up when the gun moved and Tony didn't think, didn't pause as he jumped the last distance to land on Peter, covering him with his own body.

Behind him, he heard Steve cover them by drawing fire and nailing the side of the car before it sped off.

"Shit,  _shit_ , oh God," Peter rambled, pushing in panicked motions at Tony, "Oh God, are you dead? Did he get you? Oh God, please, sorry, Mr. Stark, you -"

Tony groaned as he rolled off Peter, clutching his side which was bruised on impact, and shot Peter a look.

"What the hell"

"Mr. Stark, I can explain..."

"What the  _hell_ ," Tony repeated, whisper as hard as steel, "Are you - who are you? Who the fuck are you?"

Peter flinched at that, all of 15 and a gangly body of limbs. His brown eyes darted over Tony's face and Tony could feel his heart hammering, the fear of imagining a dead kid lingering in his mind.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Peter babbled, getting up on shaky feet, "Please, I - I didn't know this would happen. I swear, I didn't. I just - I just wanted to help and - please don't -"

"Peter," Tony dragged a deep breath and willed his panic down, pushed down every tendril of fear, "Peter, what's going on? You need to tell us the truth, buddy. We can't help you without it. What's going on?"

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," Peter stressed, hands shaking and eyes shifting in fear, "I swear, I never meant to hurt anyone, please."

Steve reached them by then and shot Tony a quick worried look before he caught Peter's shoulder and gave him his calmest look.

"It's okay," he said, voice soothing and firm, "Peter? It's okay, alright? Whatever it is, whatever happened, we'll figure things out. Okay? You don't have to be scared. Trust us."

Tony stood up and took a step forward, pausing when Peter flinched and made himself as non-threatening as possible.

"We won't hurt you," he promised, hand raised, palm flat in an offering, "I promise you, Pete, whatever it is, we'll fix it and we won't let anyone hurt you, okay?"

"Tony ..."

"I  _promise_ you," Tony ignored Steve and met Peter's eyes, confident and fierce, "We'll help you. Tell us the problem and we'll help you."

Peter swallowed, taking in a shaky breath and looked at Steve before looking back at Tony, hands clenched at his sides.

When he opened his mouth, Tony knew what he would say even before he said it.

"I am Spider-Man," Peter said, a slight tremor in tone but the words clear, "The original Spider-Man. The first hacker."

Tony swallowed down every word, curse, and swear of anger and confusion to look at Steve, who was still holding Peter's shoulder in a grounding grip. The two men shielded the kid on both sides and exchanged a look of significance. It was like the past had revisited and their case had acquired a kid again.

"Let's get you someplace safe, buddy," Tony said after a minute, and Steve squeezed Peter's shoulder before turning around with him.

Tony eyed the tire marks of the car and steeled himself for the ride ahead.


End file.
